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About this mod
A comprehensive overhaul of the entirety of New Vegas and Fallout 3's levelling and stat mechanics. All weapons, armours, NPCs, and levelled lists have been balanced around a fixed player level of 25. Everything is deadly to the player, and the player is deadly to everything. No bullet sponges, no EZ-kills. No OP gear. No useless gear. No grinding.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Having finally completely updated my overhaul to the latest TTW version, I'm now releasing this on the Nexus, true and proper. A long project, now with the core features rock solid and finished. More will be added, but that's the strawberry on an iced cake.
The changes are very significant, and they all culminate in making the two wastelands into very deadly places, that require you to think every step of the way. You will no longer be able to just charge at a group of vipers and mindlessly slaughter them, with you taking little damage from their dynamite, 9mm pistols, and machetes. You might be able to take on two at once, but three or more? Unless you have a missile launcher or have an explosives-focused build, you're dead.
The following parts of the game are completely overhauled:
Weapon Damage
Every weapon is made viable, with very few exceptions where they are just joke weapons (i.e, rolling pins). The weakest pistol in the game will deal 50 damage, with the anti material rifle dealing 75 damage. So we have a range of 50-75 from weakest-strongest single shot weapons. In vanilla, the damage range is somewhere between 8-75, with the weaker weapons being rendered completely useless outside Primm and Goodsprings.
The lower tier weapons are now viable, but the higher tier weapons still retain their prestige; sure, the anti-material rifle will only do 50% more damage over a crummy 9mm pistol, but that comes along with much better range and requiring less ammo to kill an enemy. That still makes a massive difference, as everything is a threat to the player.
Armour Defense
The armour in the game is now sorted into five primary tiers.
1 - Clothing (e.g, suits, dresses, pre-war wear, and wasteland garmants) - 3DT/10DR
2 - Light Armour (e.g, leather armour, raider armour) - 12DT/15DR
3 - Medium Armour (e.g, Khan armour, NCR armour) - 17DT/23DR
4 - Heavy Armour (e.g, metal armour) - 21DT/30DR
5 - Power Armour - 32DT/45DR
One of New Vegas' superior changes over Fallout 3, was utilizing Damage Threshold (direct damage mitigation) over Damage Reduction (percentage damage reduction). This functions well with a broad range of weaponry intended to be made redundant as your character progresses from being a peon to a world destroyer, but with the damage being done by NPC and player alike having increased many-fold, both DT and DR, used on their own, is unworkable. The solution, is to have a mix of DR and DT, which is perfect for a squished weapon range.
NPCs
In New Vegas, NPCs (both creatures and human NPCs) have a very broad level range, which is unfortunately directly linked to the level-gated areas you find them in. Not only that, just by virture of your character's level increasing, lower tier enemies are made completely useless. A large pack of jackals is very threatening at level 3, but at level 30, they're an utter joke that pose no threat, even with trash armour equipped.
That has been completely changed. A creature's threat (level, stats, health, damage output, damage resistance) is determined by the design of the creature, and the tactics they employ. Bloatflies, for instance, had a moderate increase to their stats. On their own, they are still pretty weak, but when you encounter a swarm of them, sure you won't be slain unless you're a nudist paraplegic with no weapon, but you will lose enough health to warrant a stimpack or two.
Enemies aren't the only NPCs that have been re-balanced, either. Human NPCs, whether they be powder gangers, NCR soldiers, or Freeside Junkies, are all level 25, just like the player. Also, in vanilla, most of the human NPCs have less than half as much health as the player would at the same level. Ever wondered why those powder ganger rebels in Primm were so easy to kill? Not only did their armour have trash stats, they had around 70 health. For comparison, the player at level 1 has much more health than that.
The changes to human characters have drastically changed how they are to be approached by the player. Those powder gangers that make the NCR extremely hesitant to fight? They're now a genuine threat that aren't to be taken lightly, just like how they're represented in the game world.
Character Levels & Damage Scaling
With each DLC you have installed, the player's level cap is increased by 5. This was done on the assumption that the player would progress through the game, and finish it with a complete character. Then when the DLC is sequentially released, each one would invite the player to return to the game, and experience another episode of progression.
But now, enemies and gear have been balanced with it being kept in mind that the DLC has already been released. We're not getting any more, and I've changed the game in accordance to a fixed player level of 25. So now, rather than your character's combat prowess being almost entirely dependent on having high stat pages, it's almost entirely gear. The damage difference, with the same weapon, from having 1 in the weapon's damage stat, to 100, has been reduced to 30%. Your combat stats do make a significant difference, but they don't make useless weapons decent, nor do they turn powerful weapons into WMD's.
Levelling has also been removed from the game. As soon as you leave Doc Mitchel's house, you are granted all 25 levels, with no more exp being collectable. Your build now matters. There is no power creep. There are no Gary Stu and Mary Sue builds. You can be a jack of all trades, but you will be a master of none. You can be a very good scientist with great prowess in medicine and repair, but you will not be a hot-shot with a gun nor an expert warrior with a machete.
Perks
The only change to perks, is that they now have no level requirement. Stat requirements remain.
Levelled Lists
In vanilla, you will only see certain variants of enemies at specific levels. You will only find Super Mutant Overlords near end game, and will hardly find any of the plain old Super Mutants you found during your early levels. This has been completely overhauled. You will now find all enemy variants from the very beginning.
The same thing has been applied to item levelled lists; there is no longer any level gating on items. To be frank, there was hardly any in vanilla New Vegas (Fallout 3 is a different story), but whatever traces there are of gear in the world being constrained to your character's level, have been removed.
Recommended mods:
NPCs Use Ammo - With all the changes this mod makes, it feels half-baked when NPCs can shoot endlessly at you. Now they can't, and it feels so much better!
IStewieAI's Tweaks - Check out the bDifficultyDoesntAffectNPCToNPCDamage setting if you find NPCs kill each other too fast.
The changes are very significant, and they all culminate in making the two wastelands into very deadly places, that require you to think every step of the way. You will no longer be able to just charge at a group of vipers and mindlessly slaughter them, with you taking little damage from their dynamite, 9mm pistols, and machetes. You might be able to take on two at once, but three or more? Unless you have a missile launcher or have an explosives-focused build, you're dead.
The following parts of the game are completely overhauled:
Weapon Damage
Every weapon is made viable, with very few exceptions where they are just joke weapons (i.e, rolling pins). The weakest pistol in the game will deal 50 damage, with the anti material rifle dealing 75 damage. So we have a range of 50-75 from weakest-strongest single shot weapons. In vanilla, the damage range is somewhere between 8-75, with the weaker weapons being rendered completely useless outside Primm and Goodsprings.
The lower tier weapons are now viable, but the higher tier weapons still retain their prestige; sure, the anti-material rifle will only do 50% more damage over a crummy 9mm pistol, but that comes along with much better range and requiring less ammo to kill an enemy. That still makes a massive difference, as everything is a threat to the player.
Armour Defense
The armour in the game is now sorted into five primary tiers.
1 - Clothing (e.g, suits, dresses, pre-war wear, and wasteland garmants) - 3DT/10DR
2 - Light Armour (e.g, leather armour, raider armour) - 12DT/15DR
3 - Medium Armour (e.g, Khan armour, NCR armour) - 17DT/23DR
4 - Heavy Armour (e.g, metal armour) - 21DT/30DR
5 - Power Armour - 32DT/45DR
One of New Vegas' superior changes over Fallout 3, was utilizing Damage Threshold (direct damage mitigation) over Damage Reduction (percentage damage reduction). This functions well with a broad range of weaponry intended to be made redundant as your character progresses from being a peon to a world destroyer, but with the damage being done by NPC and player alike having increased many-fold, both DT and DR, used on their own, is unworkable. The solution, is to have a mix of DR and DT, which is perfect for a squished weapon range.
NPCs
In New Vegas, NPCs (both creatures and human NPCs) have a very broad level range, which is unfortunately directly linked to the level-gated areas you find them in. Not only that, just by virture of your character's level increasing, lower tier enemies are made completely useless. A large pack of jackals is very threatening at level 3, but at level 30, they're an utter joke that pose no threat, even with trash armour equipped.
That has been completely changed. A creature's threat (level, stats, health, damage output, damage resistance) is determined by the design of the creature, and the tactics they employ. Bloatflies, for instance, had a moderate increase to their stats. On their own, they are still pretty weak, but when you encounter a swarm of them, sure you won't be slain unless you're a nudist paraplegic with no weapon, but you will lose enough health to warrant a stimpack or two.
Enemies aren't the only NPCs that have been re-balanced, either. Human NPCs, whether they be powder gangers, NCR soldiers, or Freeside Junkies, are all level 25, just like the player. Also, in vanilla, most of the human NPCs have less than half as much health as the player would at the same level. Ever wondered why those powder ganger rebels in Primm were so easy to kill? Not only did their armour have trash stats, they had around 70 health. For comparison, the player at level 1 has much more health than that.
The changes to human characters have drastically changed how they are to be approached by the player. Those powder gangers that make the NCR extremely hesitant to fight? They're now a genuine threat that aren't to be taken lightly, just like how they're represented in the game world.
Character Levels & Damage Scaling
With each DLC you have installed, the player's level cap is increased by 5. This was done on the assumption that the player would progress through the game, and finish it with a complete character. Then when the DLC is sequentially released, each one would invite the player to return to the game, and experience another episode of progression.
But now, enemies and gear have been balanced with it being kept in mind that the DLC has already been released. We're not getting any more, and I've changed the game in accordance to a fixed player level of 25. So now, rather than your character's combat prowess being almost entirely dependent on having high stat pages, it's almost entirely gear. The damage difference, with the same weapon, from having 1 in the weapon's damage stat, to 100, has been reduced to 30%. Your combat stats do make a significant difference, but they don't make useless weapons decent, nor do they turn powerful weapons into WMD's.
Levelling has also been removed from the game. As soon as you leave Doc Mitchel's house, you are granted all 25 levels, with no more exp being collectable. Your build now matters. There is no power creep. There are no Gary Stu and Mary Sue builds. You can be a jack of all trades, but you will be a master of none. You can be a very good scientist with great prowess in medicine and repair, but you will not be a hot-shot with a gun nor an expert warrior with a machete.
Perks
The only change to perks, is that they now have no level requirement. Stat requirements remain.
Levelled Lists
In vanilla, you will only see certain variants of enemies at specific levels. You will only find Super Mutant Overlords near end game, and will hardly find any of the plain old Super Mutants you found during your early levels. This has been completely overhauled. You will now find all enemy variants from the very beginning.
The same thing has been applied to item levelled lists; there is no longer any level gating on items. To be frank, there was hardly any in vanilla New Vegas (Fallout 3 is a different story), but whatever traces there are of gear in the world being constrained to your character's level, have been removed.
Recommended mods:
NPCs Use Ammo - With all the changes this mod makes, it feels half-baked when NPCs can shoot endlessly at you. Now they can't, and it feels so much better!
IStewieAI's Tweaks - Check out the bDifficultyDoesntAffectNPCToNPCDamage setting if you find NPCs kill each other too fast.